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Into the black?

I’m as confused as the rest of you – perhaps even more so, given my colour-blindness – about this #daretobedifferent carry-on put about yesterday on Twitter by Elverys and the County Board and whether or not this means that a new away jersey, supposedly a black one, will be unveiled in Killarney on Sunday.

It was this tweet yesterday from Elverys, an identical version of which was also put out by @MayoGAA, that rose this particular hare:

I can’t even hazard a guess at the colours in that image but even to my afflicted eyes there’s something other than just black in there. What message, subliminal or otherwise, may buried therein I’ll leave to yourselves to decode though I did rather like this explanation of what might be afoot:

Incidentally, when I told one of the kids about it last night – the one, incidentally, who reached the ripe old age of twelve today – she reckoned they should go the whole hog on it and insist on doing the haka before every match. She might be onto something there, you know. Aside from anything else, it would, of course, be an appropriate nod to the James Horan era.

Onto other matters, then, which from a quick shifty at the papers I can see involves a few interviews with Cillian O’Connor to coincide with the Nordie launch of the NFL, in which he took part. This has spawned a few interviews, which are here – GAA, Irish Independent, Irish Examiner, Irish Times.

The latter two pieces, by the way, zone in on what Cillian had to say on the issue of players quitting jobs to focus on the GAA, an obvious reference to the Darran O’Sullivan case, which got coverage earlier in the week. It’s worth noting in this regard, though, that the Kerryman has since vociferously denied (on Twitter) that his move was as simple as it had been portrayed and that he was instead switching careers.

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30 thoughts on “Into the black?”

The seeming conformation of what was already suspected regarding Gavin Duffy’s in eligibility to play has to rank as one of the biggest disappointments of all last year. We blame all these outside factors for falling at the last hurdle but the most damage continues to be self inflicted. If Gavin starts to display the talent that we all know he has then it will be the final insult after the Limerick debacle.
People here are raving about HQ conspiracy theories and cute Kerry tactics, why would they bother when we continue to hobble ourselves at every opportunity. The argument of his being out of the fold and time being an excuse doesn’t wash, if this mistake was made at club level heads would role, never mind one of the biggest footballing counties in the country.

Interesting comments coming out from GAA HQ that Connacht has to have no.1 venue?
A row apparently will break out between Mayo, Galway and Roscommon on that question and could not be solved back in the 90’s. I don’t think anything will come of it. You can argue against MacHale Park, Pearce or even Hyde once redeveloped against holding Connacht finals.

Anyway safe traveling to everyone making the journey down Sat or Sun. Giving myself plenty of time due to what looks like bad enough conditions this weekend.

I thought Martin Breheny’s article on that issue in today’s Indo, Steve, was particularly disingenuous – it’s here if anyone wants to see it. The way Breheny paints it, there’s only a marginal difference between what he calls the ‘safe’ capacity of the three grounds, claiming that for MacHale Park it’s 28,187, Pearse Stadium 25,341 and Hyde Park 23,470. Those numbers have to be complete horseshit – MacHale is close to if not over 40,000 (all seated, even if some seats are concrete but still the only all-seater GAA ground in the country), while most of the capacity in the other two (which in the case of Hyde Park certainly isn’t over 20k) is terracing.

For what it’s worth, I’d heard that this debate has been going on for a while and also that there’s only one realistic option to choose from, which doesn’t include either Pearse Stadium or Hyde Park.

I’m not sure there is any point lingering too long on this debacle, he wasn’t registered in time last year, and hopefully he will be a real addition to the squad.
It’ only the first game and only 2 points to play for but hopefully we’ll see a very determined performance. A win would give the new management team a great lift, so it’s is an important game. And revenge is not on the table, that can only be satisfied in Sept.

“while Pearse Stadium has a dual role as home to Galway footballers and hurlers. The Salthill venue also has the advantage of being in the home city of Connacht rugby. If the west is to be included in the IRFU bid to host the 2023 Rugby World Cup, Galway is the obvious choice, not least because of the large hotel network in the city and its surrounds”.
Guess which county Brehenoy is from???
Martin fails to mention ease and safety of access to the ground! Anyone who has been to Pearse Stadium will know what I’m on about when you have to park out in Claregalway and spend an hour walking through housing estates to get to the ground! You can only approach it from 1 side where as with MacHale Park you can park your car headed for home in 4 different directions and walk to the ground in 5 minutes.
And I do not give a continental shite what figures there are for ‘safe capacity’, if anyone thinks that Pearse Stadium is within 2,846 seats of MacHale Park then I give up. And while I’m at it, what the hell has rugby got to do with it? Prioritize a ground on the very off chance that we might need it for a tournament that we may not get in 8 years time!!! That makes sense alright. As for hotels, Martin obviously never heard of the two hotels that are 10 minutes walk from the ground. Poor Martin is getting sadder and sadder in his efforts to bash all things Mayo. With unbiased reporting like that a job awaits him in the Connaught Telegraph 🙂

Gamechanger10 You are fairly close there I would say, and a good team for this time of year. Cox and O’Brien are 2 players that I remember from Caslebar last year. I am surprised you did not include them in your list. The Aussie guy will not be too far away either.

I’m a bit sceptical about a black jersey, assuming Kerry will be playing in the royal blue jerseys then won’t it be more of a colour clash than if Mayo were playing in the red? Why would a black jersey be unveiled all of a sudden for a county with zero tradition of playing in black? Would much prefer the old white jerseys as an away strip.

Live Update: Passing by Elverys in Suffolk Street Dublin at 1pm and stuck my head in to enquire about a black strip.

They knew nothing, were very helpful and searched every relevant website all of which failed to illustrate an alternative. It’s Rugby HQ there but they were on the case of the colour clash with Kerry. Plenty of the new strip for sale – still don’t like the collar, otherwise looks good.

Okay I have been banging my head against a wall on this all day but where did this talk of a black jersey originate? Save for the original tweet from Elverys which doesn’t to me look anything like a jersey, (It could just also be a bit of photo trickery) with shadows I can’t find anything else about it. And it’s not April Fool’s day yet, so someone help me out here.

i’m going to go with Ann Marie on this one , if anything looking at the colour changes it would be green sholders as the current home design with a lighter colour around the intersport branding maybe white ,

the picture has clearly been shot in very low light to build anticipation for the game ,

regarding the game it self it’s going to be interesting to see what type of team we put out and how many regulars will start the game . it would be nice to see Gavin Duffy in at full back for 15 minutes just to see how he fits the role.
my opinion would be that Aidan has to start at ether full forward or midfield he slows down the ball to much when he plays in the half forward line.

Elverys had a video up earlier and I’m going to guess that we weren’t meant to see it as it will spoil the big reveal on Sunday seeing as they’ve taken it down! [I may have a screenshot….won’t spoil it for anyone though 😉 ] It’s definitely black though and it has the same green that’s on their tracksuits. Not sure how I feel about it yet

Well either way they have me dying to see it 😉 I haven’t bought the new jersey as I’m not that sold on it (or more specifially that huge Intersport logo on the back), but this might be a nice alternative.

Will someone for Christ sake answer Daves question. Since last May I’m listening to the debate about Gavin Duffy I was delighted when I heard he was on board. In a recent press article Ed coughlan had nothing but praise for his contribution to the panel last year but now all I hear is there was a problem with paper work The managers must have thought he was ok to play in the first fbd match and then suddenly there was a problem with paper work what sort of messing is this? Why does it take 8 months to work out his paper work.? When your man Walsh comes back from Aussie rules I bet he,ll be eligible immediately. Is there something else going on?

Dave/Liam – have a read of the piece from the Irish Times today that I linked in the post. That’ll answer everything for you. The short version is that Gavin is eligible to play for us now but wasn’t in 2014.

Just a quick thing here, I’m watching the dublin league game from last year and it’s just reminded of a few things and one being , why does it take so much for Aidan o shea to get a free kick , it’s something that refs really should have a look at , he gets pulled and dragged out of continuously without the culprits getting punished .

That’s not a bad kerry team at all, would be surprised if Tommy Walsh didn’t get a run .

That’s so true, Sean – I recall that stat after Limerick where it was stated (not sure by whom) that Aidan was fouled on 13 separate occasions, winning only one or two frees for his troubles. It’s like you get extra marks for fouling him given his size or something.

Not a bad Kerry team for sure, getting two points will likely be much more difficult than first thought.
All-Ireland hangover or not? getting a win against Kerry in Killarney in a league opener will be tough goin.
I like the idea behind the new jersey or as Willie Joe has put it “what message subliminal or otherwise may be buried therein”.
Whatever one wants to take from it, at least it seems to be a decent shot at marketing, and more toward the whole notion of developing the Mayo football brand.

Paraic Duffy should know that Connacht has a long tradition of sharing Connacht finals in different venues. That’s not the case in Leinster or Ulster with clones croke park so why copy when you can be different?

Duffy is the same chap that wanted to get rid all Ireland U21 championship around 8 years ago his opinions are normally muted fairly quickly. Breheny could do a little research before writing article

Looking forward to this match up, just to get things going again and to put last year behind us. If Gavin Duffy is eligible to play, I’d sure like to see him get some game time. Really looking forward to team announcement. I hope they take the opportunity to experiment.
Up Mayo!